Show Professor Puts Fon Forward ar New v Theory l Concerning Lost CO Continent of Atlantis iJ By Science Service The lost continent of Atlantis How many nany times has human Imagination been een stirred by thoughts of a huge island In the Atlantic ocean suddenly engulfed by the sea In a horrible day of f earthquake and flood Was there ever vcr such a n place or was Atlantis amyth n a myth So 50 much has been written arguing for or and against that Professor W. W A. A Heidel Greek scholar of Wesleyan university in Connecticut brings up the ic hackneyed theme apologetically His Justification for or mentioning It he heays says ays is that he has a new suggestion to o offer Studying Platos Plato's dialogs where the Atlantis story got Its start st. In writing Professor Heidel believes he ho can discern dis dis- dis cern ern what was in Platos Plato's thought ashe as ashe asic he ic framed the story that was destined to o puzzle and Intrigue the world The story of ot Atlantis concludes Professor Heidel eidel was fiction devised by Plato Greek pride caused him to put in inome some ome details And there was an a air r of f playful Irony in the telling r. r The philosopher Plato was teaching how the ideal republic would fane f. tion in the crisis of ot war var To make the thear ar argument real he asked hk hl Bud audience to the citizens of ot the suppose ideal r republic re re- public to be their venerable ancestors in Iii a very ancient Athens And then he outlined the drama of primitive Athenians years before engaged in conflict with people from the ir great at island Atlantis and as an epilogue he be told of or sudden disaster which plunged Atlantis into the depths of the tue aea ea What That has misled some scholars int into thinking that Plato might be talking about a real country says Professor Heidel was Platos Plato's statement that he i got his facts about Atlantis from the t Egyptian priests Egypt to the ancient world was the land of ot the oId oldest t wi wj t dom the priests were the great au But Professor Heidel interpretation in- in i on is that Plato attributed I Rt Atlantis to the Egyptians merely t. t to R give weight to his words word and a touch of reaIL realism m. m Ri Like accomplished creators o of fir fie 4 tion lion in all ages says the professor 1 f he multiplies the circumstanceS circumstance s which give to his hl story story- fj i Moreover Plato seems to have en tn v l' Joyed oyed taking a dig at the Egyptian wisdom and antiquity For he proudly proud proud- J ly 13 makes his primitive Athens a thou than sand years older than an Egypt Egyptian f town in the narrative And as he tells of the struggle between the Greeks Greeks' and the conquering armies rules from Atlantis Atlantis Atlantis At- At lantis he says that Greece defeated the invaders and liberated all the inhabitants in la- ini i habitants of Europe and Africa Since Plato is the only writer of an- an who refers to Atlantis Atlantic the solution of the Atlantis problem is s 1 most likely to be found in his diree- diree tion Professor Protessor Heidel believes As in inthe j i ithe the childrens children's game of ot hide and hide and the seeker would seem to be warm when investigating Greek history and geography in order to see what ideas Jj J 11 were borrowed and used to tomake make a alost a j t lost continent And considering that Plato had no modem modern knowledge of ot the worlds world's geologic history and 4 could scarcely have held theories of j t land bridges in the Mesozoic era the Atlantis seekers who approach the a problem geologically ecologically are cold cold o so far as their chances o of explaining Platos Plato's Atlantis are concerned J |